Dance your dance, Sustain your feauture Youth exchange at Sunny Hill

July and August have passed by in a blink of an eye… Interesting visitors were dwelling around, bringing diversity, learning opportunities and realization, that this place is becoming too small for everything we want to do, and for all the people who’d like to be part of it.

The culmination of this lively, colorful, enchanted summer was the group of young people from Slovenia, Croatia, Italy and Estonia, who brought us joy, laughter and positive attitude towards life.

The theme of the exchange was, how to sustain, with the fast life style and the challenges that the world and Europe as part of it are facing. Challenges that bring uncertainty and anxiety to young peoples lives. How to stay kind, compassionate and optimistic, when you are unsure about your own future. Our youth says that art and nature is one of the remedies.

They exchanged their experience and life knowledge how different art media (art, dance, theater, music, handcraft, singing) can help to relieve stress, discover themselves and support their growth. They actively shared this in an open space. The second topic of the exchange was sustainability – practical and theoretical. They have learnt about permaculture and how to make your own cosmetics from the ingredients that you find in the kitchen, they also made different handcraft from natural material. Through help to the local farmers they learned about eco-farming, and they supported the local cultural heritage by cleaning the bushes around the thousand years old church of St. Hieronimo. They also helped with work at Sunny Hill community and learned practical aspects of sustainability (how to make a yurt, preserving food, garden work, building with local material, cooking from vegetables from the garden, ect.). There was an introduction to The Dragon Dreaming method fro collective project management, they also learnt about facilitation and talked about sustainability on a personal level in a World Cafe.

They shared their traditional dishes in 4 national food evenings, and learnt from a local lady, how to make traditional Istrian dish, Fuzi with truffels . They also went to explore the neighbourhood and met locals, whom they invited to a celebration evening with play, music and dance. Over 80 years old Ivanka from the village was sitting with them around the fire, happy to see so many young people together, talking to each other.

All this was shared in a relaxed atmosphere, accompanied with music and dance, laughter and joy.

Special thanks to Zadruga Dobrote for donation of sheets and blankets.